5 Life Lessons Sports can teach us all

I’m linking up again the DC Trifecta for the Friday Five. Each week, Cynthia, Mar & Courtney come up with a fab theme to get us all spinning our creative wheels. This week it’s “Anything Goes”. There always seems to be a ton of sports talk in our house which got me thinking about some of the important life lessons sports can offer to our kids and all of us. Here a some of my favorites.

5 Life Lessons Sports can teach us all:

1. Practice makes better.

Practicing your given sport-running, biking, soccer, baseball etc. will eventually make you better. Practice doesn’t always mean perfect but it does give you the opportunity to grow and learn everyday.

2. Don’t be afraid to try something new.

Throughout our lives, we constantly encounter situations that are new. New schools, new jobs, new relationships we will all face them. The self confidence we can build through trying and succeeding at sports has the potential to help us achieve success in all areas of our lives.

3. You can’t win all the time.

One of the hardest lessons for us all. You may watch your children lose a game they worked so hard at playing or fail an exam they studied so hard at. As an adult, you may not get a job you thought was yours, lose an account or fail at a relationship. Experiencing loss as a child through sports, can teach you that you can’t always win but that shouldn’t stop you from trying. Resilience, perseverance and failure- lessons we must all learn and accept are played out everyday with sports.

4. Be a team player.

Having just witnessed my son’s lacrosse season these past few months, clearly many kids and their parents have a lot to learn about good sportsmanship. Learning to be part of a team, leading by example and demonstrating positive leadership skills are qualities we all want to see our children grow to attain. Demonstrating these skills ourselves in our work and home lives are the way we teach them to value these qualities.

5. Do what you love & have fun doing it

Finding activities you love and doing them routinely teaches your children to value fitness and take care of their bodies. Sports can be a great stress reliever and a huge part of a social life.

Meet Deborah

I'm a mom of 2 teenagers, wife and lover of all things running & fitness. As a life long vegetarian, I've always been passionate about healthy living & exercise. Looking for motivation last year, I started my own chapter of Moms Run This Town (MRTT) which has grown to over 200 members. I've met so many amazing women who inspire me daily to keep moving forward.
I am currently the Race Ambassador for The Rock N Roll Marathon/Half Marathon in Washington, DC. I am fortunate to be a Girls on The Run Coach this season and can't wait to inspire a new generation of female runners.
My favorite race distances are 10k's and Half Marathons. I love to keep up to date on new running & fitness trends. I definitely choose my running gear based on color and love to express my fashion sense while exercising.

This is awesome! Thank you very much Deborah! I remember what my coach said before, that we need to love what we are doing. Because for as long as we love our chosen field or path in life, it’s easy for us to accept failures as well as our successes. Number 2 is true, that is my motivation in life. 🙂 I never contain myself in my comfort zone. I am not afraid to try new things because I believe that there are greater things ahead of me that I just have to explore.

Great lessons to be learned. All important things to learn. And it is important to learn that you can’t win all the time, which means you have to lose. But losing doesn’t mean you don’t get back up and keep going. Important to learn and grow from.

I love this list. I think it’s really important for kids, especially today’s generation, to learn that they can’t always get everything they want. Society really has begun a destructive cycle of shielding our children from failure and disappointment. But it’s foolish to think that way. It’s a part of life that we will eventually have to learn as we get older.
Great points!

Thanks! I agree. When my kids were little “everyone won” so as they grow up and realize that’s not the case, some of them don’t take it so well. Hard lesson to learn but an important one for parents to teach.

Great list! I played sports in high school and the biggest thing I learned is that it should be fun! If I put too much pressure on myself, I stopped enjoying it. Unless you’re planning on going pro, just enjoy the camaraderie and exercise 🙂

Wow, great list… great life lessions! LOVE the quotes you included. I never played sports growing up (unless you count 1 season of T-ball, which really was not my thing at all, haha, I was mostly a lefty, but was sort of ambidextrous and so I never knew which side of the plate to stand on) on a regular basis. I feel like I’ve had to learn some of these lessons through other methods, and I’m sure if I would have had sports in my life as a child and growing up, it would be easier as an adult now. But it’s never too late, right! 🙂

Great list! I don’t have kids, but I hear from friends that in many sports now there is no winning or losing team. I think that’s a shame! No, it does not feel good to lose; but the lesson it teaches is an important one for both self-confidence reasons & learning to be a good sport.

Great list! Definitely important lessons. I really like the “can’t win all the time”. One of my kiddos is just learning this and it is definitely important. It can be hard for them but itndefinitely helps them to keep at it and to not give up if it is something they want to continue.

I just watched my teen lose his lax game in the finals after being undefeated all season. Broke my heart and his I’m afraid. Good lesson to learn if he wants to play through high school. It was tough to watch.

Good luck with you tri. They are so much fun. I used to teach indoor cycling and really enjoyed it. It’s a lot of work to come up with new classes and music each class but so rewarding. Hope you like it too! thanks for visiting.

Hi, I’m Deborah

I'm a mom of 2 teenagers, wife and lover of all things running & fitness. As a life long vegetarian, I've always been passionate about healthy living & exercise. Looking for motivation, I started my own chapter of Moms Run This Town (MRTT) which has grown to almost 600 members. Read More…

Now that winter seems to be here to stay, I thought I would share some of my favorite winter must have pieces. As the temps drop, these are the items I am counting on to keep me warm. If you are still looking for some items to add to your holiday list check out my […]

I am joining in on the Wednesday Word fun this week. I have always considered myself a really organized person. I schedule dental appointments and hair appointments and basically everything way in advance to make sure they fit well into my schedule. My grocery list is organized and even my closet is pretty well organized. […]